


Shadow

by strawberrylovely



Category: Shance - Fandom, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Day 1: Garrison, M/M, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Shance Angst Week, Shangst Week 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 11:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11312442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrylovely/pseuds/strawberrylovely
Summary: Based on the song Shadow by Sam Tsui. Shiro left for the Kerberos Mission and left behind his shadow for Lance to deal with.





	Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> I highly suggest you listen to the song because this is strongly based on it and this fic would make a lot more sense with the song.
> 
> Link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CEQvj0qszlw

It had been a year since the Kerberos mission was declared unsuccessful. It had been a year since Shiro had left Earth forever. It had been a year since Lance had told Shiro he loved him, but more importantly it had been a year since he told him he hated him.

Lance remembered the fight, Shiro was leaving and Lance had begged him to stay with him, to not go. What if something happened while Shiro was gone? What if he never came back? Lance hated that he had been right. He wished Shiro had listened and he hated him for leaving. For leaving _him_.

They’d been dating in secret for over a year, Lance sneaking into the older cadet’s room after curfew so they could spend time together outside of class. It was frowned upon for two cadets of different ranking to be in a relationship, much less two of the same gender.

For months, Lance had tried to convince Shiro not to go. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy for him, and Shiro knew that, Lance just had an uneasy feeling about the mission. He was so worried that something would happen and Shiro wouldn’t make it back safe into his arms. Or if he did make it back, that he would be different, empty. Not to mention that it would be so long. What if by the time Shiro came back, their feelings for each other weren’t the same? What if their relationship couldn’t survive being apart for so long? Lance didn’t want to find out.

The day of the Kerberos mission, however, was probably the worst day of Lance’s life. The night before, Lance and Shiro had one more evening together, and they spent it making the most of what little time they had left. After, Lance had made sure Shiro's bags were all packed so he would remember everything. He didn’t return to his room that evening like he normally would. He stayed wrapped in Shiro’s arms the whole night.

When they woke up, however, Lance’s feeling of dread about the mission overcame him. He begged over and over again for Shiro not to go, pleading with him to change his mind. At first Shiro had tried to assure him that everything would be alright, that he would love Lance no matter what and would come back home to him, but that morning, something overcame Shiro and he snapped. For the first time in their relationship, Shiro yelled at Lance. He told him that he would be fine, that he didn’t need Lance to be hanging off of him like some child, that he was going no matter what Lance said, because it was his duty as a cadet and a pilot. Lance cried and told Shiro that he just cared about him and wanted him to be safe. Shiro said that he could take care of himself and didn’t need Lance to act like his mother. He told Lance to leave him alone. Lance told him that he would. He would get out of Shiro’s hair and never worry about him again. Shiro said good, he didn’t need him. Lance screamed that he hated him.

It was there in the open and Lance couldn’t take it back. He’d tried, but Shiro had already picked up his bags, full of everything he’d brought with him to the Garrison, and started to leave. As he opened the door, he turned back and told Lance goodbye. And that was it.

Lance ran after Shiro once what had happened caught up with him, but he was gone. Already boarding the spaceship to take him far away from Earth’s atmosphere, and away from Lance.

That was the last thing he’d ever said to Shiro. The last thing Shiro heard his boyfriend say before going up to space and never coming back. Lance hated himself for how he must have made Shiro feel. And he hated how he made himself feel. He would have to live with the fact that his last words to the person he loved most in the world was “I hate you.”

As the months passed after finding out about the failed mission, Lance tried so hard to forget Shiro, to forget their relationship ever happened and that they’d parted the way that they did. He hid all the pictures he had of the two of them. He didn’t want to feel like Shiro was watching him and making him feel guilty every time he saw his picture. Shiro’s room had been emptied when Shiro left, so there was nothing left to remind Lance of him. Everything of Shiro’s and about Shiro was gone. But, no matter how hard he tried to get over Shiro, to forget, he couldn’t. Why did Lance still feel his presence everywhere he went? Why did it feel like Shiro never really left, but had been standing right behind him this whole time? It was as if Shiro had left his shadow behind, a blurry shape of him that Lance couldn’t touch.

Every time Lance slept, he saw Shiro’s empty eyes, eyes that he'd begged so hard to stay with him, staring at him, telling him goodbye, but Lance had grown tired of trying to chase after false dreams. He just wish those lingering feelings of Shiro would leave him alone, just like the real Shiro had.

All around him people were talking about the mission, the pilot error, Takashi Shirogone, lost forever. He felt trapped in his own feelings. Unable to tell anyone what he was going through, and unable to get over it by himself. It was like he was locked away in a cage screaming "let me go!" but no one could hear him. No one but a shadow, a shadow that was the cage itself. 

So yeah, it had been a year, a hard difficult and unbearable year. And now, Lance was standing in a shack in the desert, shaking the hand of the man he loved that had finally returned to him. The man he thought was gone forever, back in his arms again. The man he had wished he could forget, but who instead had forgotten him.


End file.
